Beginning today, you can purchase New Vegas’ latest and greatest DLC, Old World Blues, on Xbox LIVE, Steam, and PSN. To get you ready for all the crazy fun, here’s a short diary from Old World Blues’ lead brain, Chris Avellone.

Take it away, Chris!

There is an expression in the wasteland called “Old World Blues.” It refers to those obsessed with the past they can’t see the present, much less the future for what it is. Their eyes are like pilot lights, guttering and spent, the realities of their world continuing on around them as they stare into the past.

Old World Blues is built around the history of Fallout games we’ve worked on. It’s history-that’s-created-history, with a dash of what might have been from past games, media, and design documents from Fallout 1, 2, and past Fallout projects given new life. From Lobotomites, DNA splicing, Cazadores, Night Stalkers, where-the-hell-did-those-plants-in-the-Mojave-come-from, the scientific enclave of Big MT itself, Proton weapons, and giant robotic scorpions, all of these things formed the nucleus of taking a trip into the past-is-present Fallout universe to see a slice of the Old World that’s been fenced in and feeding on itself for far too long. We wanted you to see the context and homages to the Fallout universe in a scientific preserve, both from the distant Fallout past to more recent adventures in New Vegas and the DLCs. As you’ll discover, Big MT (or the Big “Empty”) is filled with what-might-have-been… and all that was lost that potentially could have made a better world for all. There’s an undercurrent of the blues all around Big MT… but if you’re strong enough, you can change it, and the whole meaning of Old World Blues forever.

Hot off the press! This afternoon we’ve officially announced The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion 5th Anniversary Edition — coming to North America (more details on Europe soon) on Tuesday, July 12. Read the full release below:

We are pleased to announce that The Elder Scrolls IV™: Oblivion® 5th Anniversary Edition will available in North America on Tuesday, July 12, 2011.

The anniversary edition, which has a suggested retail price of $29.99, is the complete collection of the original award-winning game as well as the Knights of the Nine®and Shivering Isles® expansions. With countless ‘Game of the Year’ awards and overwhelming critical praise, Oblivion still remains a defining game in the role-playing genre. Celebrate one of the most expansive next-generation titles ever to be released on the Xbox®360, PlayStation®3, and PC platforms with this definitive, limited-edition compilation.

The Elder Scrolls IV™: Oblivion® 5th Anniversary Edition includes:

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: With the empire ready to crumble, the gates of Oblivion open and demons march upon the land. You must find the lost heir to the throne and unravel the sinister plot that threatens to destroy all of Tamriel.

Knights of the Nine: A fallen King has been unchained from the darkness of Oblivion to seek vengeance upon the Gods who banished him. Only a champion pure of heart can vanquish the evil that has been released.

Shivering Isles: Enter the torn realm of Sheogorath – a world where Mania and Dementia reign. Do you have the strength to survive his trials, to tame a realm fraught with paranoia and despair, and wear the mantle of a God?

More than a million matches. Over 10 billion XP points earned. And more than 80 years of playtime. Wow, you’ve been busy!

Beginning today you can track these stats and much more on our all-new Brink statistics site.Visit Battle.BrinkTheGame.com for in-depth players stats, match summaries, and the Battle for the Ark — a weekly meta-game between Security and Resistance.

In addition to the statistics, we’ve got an update planned for this summer that will help with setting up tournaments and clan recruitment. Stay tuned for more details.

To learn how to track your progress, check out our FAQ after the break.

Wanted to share an update on Brink from Splash Damage’s Paul Wedgwood – the Game Director on Brink.

Now that Brink has been released in North America, we’ve had hundreds of thousands of people create their character and join the civil war for the Ark. Seeing the game out there being played and enjoyed by so many is very exciting for us, and we’ve been hopping into multiplayer matches ourselves to get in on the action with all of you.

Before we dive into this blog update, we’d like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who’s been sharing their feedback about Brink. We keep a close eye on what all of you have been saying about the game and wanted to give you an update on what’s been happening on our end:

Xbox 360

We’ve now put up our first game update on the Xbox 360, which went live at launch. It addresses several of the issues raised in some of the early US reviews of the game and brings with it some major improvements.

Most importantly, this update significantly reduced texture loading times thanks to improved hard-drive caching. It also improves client prediction when playing online – in other words, you’ll experience much less “rubber banding” in multiplayer. We’ve also fixed several issues that could lead to the game freezing, and resolved an issue where Brink would insist on playing all of the training videos rather than just the introductory one.

If you’ve not yet got the update, simply restart the game while your Xbox is connected to the internet.

We’ve also been getting new reports of lag when playing online, especially in matches with lots of human players. We’re all huge multiplayer fans here at the office and we know how important a lag-free online experience is. We’re urgently investigating this issue and seeing what we can do to improve things in that area. Stay tuned.

Information on PS3, PC, and the game’s upcoming statistics site after the break…

Alistair Hatch, our European PR Manager, reports on our European community tournament held at Splash Damage’s office last week. Read details below…

Brink Community Megathon 2011

A short while ago we ran competitions with leading games websites in each of our key PAL territories for a chance to fly to London and compete in a Brink tournament before it launches this week. Eurogamer (UK), ESL (Germany), JeuxVideo (France), 3djuegos (Spain), Everyeye (Italy), Fz (Sweden), Insidegamer & 9lives (Benelux), and Gamespot (Australia) all provided one editor and three competition winners to shoot it out on Splash Damage’s innovative new shooter.

Held at the Splash Damage’s studio, the tournament kicked off with a titanic clash between old sporting rivals – UK and Australia. Perhaps it was the jetlag, or just the very fact that they’d spent 24hrs on an aeroplane, but Australia narrowly lost to the UK team in a tightly fought opening match.